Friday, July 28, 2006

Spanish Bishops "The Church is sick"

And in need of a cure...fascinating document that was done in conjunction with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith when the Pope was still a cardinal and the head of it. It lays out what the problem is, its origin and the cure...

The sickness is “the secularization within the Church”: a widespread lossof faith caused in part by “theological propositions that have in common adeformed presentation of the mystery of Christ.”

The cure is precisely that ofrestoring life to the profession of faith: “You are the Christ, the Son of theliving God” (Matthew 16:16), in the four areas where it is most seriouslyundermined today:

the interpretation of Scripture,

Jesus Christ as the only savior of all men,

the Church as the Body of Christ,

moral life.

The instruction is organized under these four main headings. In each section, thedocument first presents the features of correct Christological doctrine, andthen denounces the theologies that deform it. It denounces the theologies, notthe theologians. The instruction does not target particular authors, but limitsitself to denouncing erroneous tendencies. The names found in the notes thataccompany the text are simply those of theologians already marked out in thepast by doctrinal condemnations and disciplinary sanctions by the VaticanCongregation for the Doctrine of the Faith or by the Spanish bishops’conference.

And from the actual document:

2. They are not few who, in the shadow of a nonexistent Council, in terms of both letter and spirit, have sown agitation and disquiet in the hearts of many of the faithful.

13. From the denial of one aspect of the profession of faith, one passes to the total loss of the faith itself, in that by selecting some aspects and refuting others one does not respect the testimony of God, but rather human reasoning. When one alters the profession of faith, the entire Christian life is compromised by this.

19. In some instances the biblical texts are studied and interpreted as if these were nothing more than ancient texts. There is also the application of methods that systematically exclude the possibility of revelation, miracles, and intervention of God. Instead of integrating the contributions of history, philology, and other scholarly disciplines with the faith and the Church’s tradition, frequently the ecclesial interpretation itself is presented as the problem and considered as extraneous, if not opposed, to “scientific exegesis.”

25. The historical-critical method has been abused without a recognition of its limits, and this has gone so far as the assertion that the pre-existence of the divine person of Christ is a mere philosophical deformation of the biblical evidence. [...] The mission of Christ has been understood as a merely earthly event, if not political-revolutionary, thus denying his voluntary death on the cross for mankind.